I finally approved getting the first of several new blackberry’s for our on call teams. I was holding off since the cost of the device was allot ($350). The current blackberries we have were only between $100 and $200 to purchase. Of course they are the smaller pager stye ones. Unfortunately no one seems to be selling them anymore. Everyone is trending towards the all in one pager, cell phone device. For us this isn’t the greatest. Almost all of us already have cell phones, so the pager/phone combo just adds weight to what we want to carry around.
The reason we are buying the more expensive units is simple. The current system we use with the pager style blackberry’s are charging a flat rate for up to 1mb of email. Then they charge you for every kb over that. We send alert pages to these devices and some months our overages can be $100 – $150 per device. Knowing that, by switching to Nextel’s blackberry server with a flat rate all you can receive plan we will over time save more money. I figure if we pay for $50 overages per pager per month, the $350 pager pays for itself after 7 months. We have had some of our older pagers for over 2 years and some of them are in great shape. That means in the long run we save cash.
Another added feature that made the decision easier was the fact that these new blackberry’s have Nextel direct connect. We get unlimited use of direct connect for free with the plan we have. It becomes useful when we deploy that to everyone who is on call. The goal is to improve our paging and on call system as best as possible while saving money. Man I am really starting to sound like a manager:(
We get our new blackberry today I hope. That would give me the weekend to play with it. Jayson already has one. We can test the direct connect. He loves the email functions on his. I have been using my Treo for a while, and I like it. But the blackberry seems to deliver mail faster, and it is easier to type on. I think my blackberry use may be making a comeback. Not sure yet!
This blog entry was written while listening to Sad Songs from the album “Beneath These Fireworks” by Matt Nathanson